What’s Hot? 21/05
This week, we’re finding out why Twitter image crop is no more, choosing espresso martini over beer, and singing “everyone is awesome”…
The update we needed: Image crop
Last month, Twitter users were split into two camps over the end of “image-crop”, the automatic crop of any image posted on Twitter. Half were happy (“I can finally post mirror selfies!”), half were sad (“No more ‘open for a surprise’ ☹”).
This week, Twitter released an overview of why the update was made, and it wasn’t for user experience, but rather as an effort to address algorithmic bias. You might recall that last year, users kept posting images of black and white people together, and Twitter would always crop in favour of the white person. In addition, a full-length image of a woman might choose her chest or legs as the focus. This was allegedly due to a “saliency model”, which tracks where the human eye first looks in an image, then uses this knowledge to analyse more similar images.
Social media updates rarely make everyone happy, but we have to say this is a great choice moving forward from Twitter – while we often can’t control the bias within algorithms, we can remove them entirely until we are able to produce systems which are fair.
Espresso martini or beer?
This week, research by Kahlúa found that Brits get through 1,352 coffee drinks per year, including 104 espresso martinis! We feel this adds serious clout to our famous Q&A question: “Espresso martini or beer?” Over half of the Feverlings we’ve surveyed to date have chosen espresso martini over a classic lager or ale, possibly due to the taste, or the smell, or the sweet, sweet, caffeinated buzz.
Once again, Snap is trying to keep up with the big boys, this time by unveiling plans for a new app specialised for video editing; ‘Story Studio’. Not only does it offer professional-level tools, but it also offers creators another way to monetise their content through gifting from fans.
Snap also revealed its monthly active users for the first time ever (500m) compared to TikTok 700m and Instagram’s 1bn. Looking at the numbers, Snap doesn’t feel too far behind – but we’d love to know the average user’s daily usage on each app…
Just thinking about the song “Everything is awesome” gives me a headache and horrible throwback to an ex-boyfriend’s brother singing it incessantly during a never-ending road trip. I never imagined that the song could have a positive spin, and yet this week Lego HQ announced its latest range: Everyone is awesome, an LGBTQIA+ set.
11 new figures cover the rainbow flag, the trans flag, and a range of skin tones, all with ambiguous genders except the purple figurine wearing a beehive, representing drag queens. The set goes on sale on 1st June to mark the start of Pride Month.
Facebook’s latest: Live Shopping Fridays
Have you ever asked yourself: Wow, I wish QVC was more accessible? More readily available? Available for shopping at the drop of a hat? No, you haven’t, because it’s on 24/7 and it’s free (with a TV License ofc).
And yet, here we are, in a situation where Facebook has launched ‘Live Shopping Fridays’. These shopping experiences will see brands host virtual events to promote products, with viewers having the ability to send in questions on products.
At the moment, it’s limited to beauty and fashion (#tbt to the very first YouTube vloggers. Zoella walked so Live Shopping Fridays could run) with Abercrombie and Fitch and Clinique being some of the first brands to take part.
